As a restaurant critic for the European edition of the Herald Tribune in the 1950s, I was in Paris when the city was burning. That is to say, every French man and woman filled the cafés and dining rooms with smoke all day.

The French Parliament is now discussing whether to ban smoking in restaurants, bars, cafés and the Eiffel Tower. France could become a smoke-free country. For all of us, the cigarette or cigar was the best way to end a fantastic meal. The French have a saying, "A day without tobacco is like a day without sunshine."

The French, being the French, have very contrary attitudes about smoking. One branch of the government sold Gauloise, as well as other tobacco products, as a means of collecting tax money. Another part of government had an advertising campaign proclaiming that smoking was dangerous to your health. In the good old days, I smoked cigars - six to ten a day.

I thought nothing of lighting up a Havana after a meal in a good restaurant. Sometimes when I was sitting next to an American tourist he would say, "Do you mind putting out that cigar?" Or, "Put the damn thing out! You are making my wife sick." I sized him up, and if he was bigger than I was I put it out.

I found it was true. One evening I was at La Tour d'Argent. I had the pressed duck, and just prior to that I had smoked a cigar at the Ritz Bar. I couldn't taste the duck. Since I was a restaurant critic, I didn't mention it to my companions.

The smokers in cafés in France needed a cigarette in their lips before they spoke. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Bouvoir, Picasso, Alexander Calder, got all their ideas as they exhaled smoke from their mouths.

My favorite café was La Coupole in Montparnasse. You could hardly see the people through the smoke. I have ashtrays from there and other cafés; my trophy is from Maxim's.